-I just loved off my copy of Ever 17, and goddamn, I’ve sunk half a day’s worth of time into it and I still haven’t even gotten to the fourth day yet. It really does deliver over a hundred hours’ worth of gameplay…

Just a couple months ago, Animax-Asia decided to add some rather popular series to its lineup of (horribly dubbed) anime. Honey and Clover (YES), Paradise Kiss, and Kamichu!.

As for my opinion on this, I think it’s really good that Animax is grabbing these more recent (read: really good) titles and releasing them to the general public. More people will be exposed to what anime can, and should be — not just what it is. Of course, I’m talking about those kinds of stereotypes, “anime is porn”, “every girl has XBOXHUEG boobs”, “it’s just senseless fighting”, “there’s no intelligence in it”, “anime is mindless blather”, to name a few. Just these few series can show some of the better sides of anime, like slice of life, like drama, like happy moe goodness.

Of course, with any (and all) good things, comes a little string attached; a little price to pay. In this case, we have to (probably) bear with English dubs. And well, Animax-Asia, the Philippines, in particular, is pretty well known for badly dubbed stuff. I mean, look at GTO’s dub. If you don’t cry from the voice acting, then go and kill yourself — you are the most apathetic person EVER.

Still, maybe, just maybe, I’ll watch it (referring to H&C, because that’s the only one whose subbed version I saw as well). Just for the heck of it.

As you might know, the Saimoe 2006 tournament is going on right now, and competition is fierce.

*note: almost all of what I’m saying about who’s going to win is pure speculation*

On one end, we have a good number of possible finalists, like Shana, Suiseiseki (desu), Mikuru, or any of the Tsukamoto sisters. In the other block, there’s probably a couple of clear-cut winners. Namely Haruhi, Yuki, and Eri. Of course, the only way we’ll ever find out is, with much anticipation, to watch the next few matches. And may the most moé girl win!

PS: I just went through my referrers, and I found a rather peculiar one. Apparently, someone went to excite.co.jp’stranslator and viewed my blog in Japanese, as seen here. I… won’t even ask.
Also, I found out the someone from another animeblog — a Filipino like me, no less — referred someone to this little corner of the web. Grr, you get hosting from animeblogger, grr…
I also had a look at the search keywords that people used on Google or whatever to get here, and among the more interesting ones were:
– “dna game anime”
– “negima beats”
– “yogurting”
– “fucker fighter”

(Yeah, I fail at making bullets. Someone please tell me how.)

So I can assume that people want more Yogurting, more game-anime, and fighters that fuck.
Well, I can’t exactly talk about Yogurting now, since I kinda quit. Game / anime? yes, I will talk about that stuff. No “fucking fighters”, but I will talk about eroge — that has fucking. And I might talk about some fighting games, but still mostly shmups.

And so with episode 22 of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, this so-so animation has finally gained credibility in being a good series once again.

For the beginning, in typical Higurashi style, we are given a glimpse of what happens in the future (which as just 5 episodes away, apparently). Rena looks cool, yet rather insane in a black tight suit while the other 4 are just staring at her talk about… something. Oh, there was some dead guy, but I can’t tell who. Probably Rena’s mom or Satoko’s uncle. With the first half of the episode, we are shown a good bit of filler. Not that it’s a bad thing, of course, as we see Rika in Angel Mort’s waitress outfit, Mion in a Gym uniform + cat tail, and Satoko in a maid outfit. As the second half of the show progresses, we are given a little insight to Rena’s childhood, and we get to see her dad too. Soon after, we see her mom once more, but this time, it’s in the present. Now, we are given a new reason to hate Satoko’s uncle, whose name wasn’t worth remembering. He is blackmailing and “badgering” to earn money, and guess who’s the woman who’s doing that badgering — that’s right, it’s Rena’s mom! We then see a bit more of Shion and Kasai explains a bit about Rena’s mom and that bastard uncle. The episode ends with Rena doing a little facial contortion thing that we all love — a clear indication that we’ll see uncle fucker get his head bashed in again. Only this time, with a huge fucking machette.

This ep was probably one of my more favorite ones, if only for the fact that we see Waitress Rika, Gym Uniform Rena and Maid Satoko. Also, episode 22 was pretty important, information-wise since we are given a good backstory to Rena’s childhood. I’m definitely awaiting the next one with much anticipation.

Okay, next topic.

This is pretty old, but I just watched a trailer for Kanon 2006, and HOLY FUCKING SHIT. The animation just blew me away. Never have I seen this kind of quality in any other animation, ever (maybe asides from some stuff like Haruhi, among others). Kanon’s backgrounds were beautiful, equalling, if not surpassing, those found in a regular eroge. Scenes from the trailer had also matched many of those found in the actual game, as I saw in *someone’s* comparison. All I can say is, I am definitely looking forward to grabbing this series.

Moving on…

Again, probably really old, but I found the sequel to Stratos 4, aptly titled, “Stratos 4 Advance”. It deals with the journey of 3 new girls in the Okinawa base. One thing I definitely like about it was that nearly the entire cast (or probably everyone) was still present in the sequel. This means that, yes, the budget’s gonna take a hit from this, but the interaction I loved back in the original will still be present here. Now I need to wait for the next 5 episodes. Stupid slow and crappy internet…

Now for something non-anime related.

Just a few weeks back, I made a shocking new discovery. The arcades at the basement of a somewhat nearby mall are home to two of the most well-known shmup series EVAR: Strikers and Giga Wing. While I am overjoyed that I can finally sit down and play some quality games, I am sad as well, for they are in coin-op machines, which are quite annoying to work with because every fucking time I play Giga Wing, it eats up my credits every few times I jam some money into it. More annoying is the fact that this mall where the arcades are located at is in a distant location from both where I live, and where I go to school. Which means I only get some happy fun shmup time for 30 – 45 minutes every Sunday. And that’s assuming I actually get to go there at all.

Now to wait until those machines are junked. Then I’ll take ’em and bring ’em home (to quote Rena, omochikairi~~~!), hopefully with no expenses on my part. Afterwards, I plug it in, and shmup up my house so hard that even God will want to come and play.

Death Note
The manga was good, so I’ll see how it transitions into anime.

The Wallflower
Based on a manga. 4 guys are allowed to live in a rich, posh mansion for free if they can convert a girl from goth-freak into a decent-looking girl. Del-Rey did the manga adaptation, though I’ve never read it yet, so it might be good.

A Spirit of the Sun
Looks really bad. It’s only 2 episodes long though, so I might just get it either way.